Major League Baseball legend and the sport’s all-time hits leader Pete Rose passed away on Monday and his cause of death has now been revealed.
According to the Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner in Nevada, Rose’s official cause of death has been revealed to be heart disease.
Officials say Rose died from natural causes and that he’d also been battling diabetes.
Rose was found dead in his Las Vegas home on Monday afternoon by a family member.
He had just been seen the day before at a meet-and-greet in Nashville, Tennessee – where he appeared to be in good spirits despite being in a wheelchair due to back issues.Â
The cause of death for MLB legend Pete Rose has been revealed after his passing on Monday
Outside Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, Ohio, fans laid flowers and memorabilia at a statue of Rose doing his trademark head-first slide.Â
Rose is known for many things. His 4,256 hits is the most of any player in the history of Major League Baseball and he was a cult hero in his home town of Cincinnati, the city where he played a majority of his career and where he managed for six seasons.
At the same time, his legacy is complicated by his actions off the field that – among other things – saw him receive a lifetime ban from the sport and get branded ‘permanently ineligible’ from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Rose and former MLB commissioner Bart Giamatti agreed to a lifetime ban in August 1989 after an investigation by lawyer John Dowd found that he placed numerous bets on the Reds, violating one of the oldest rules in baseball.
While he is not accused of betting against the Reds, Rose’s gambling presented a number of problems for MLB, which felt the sanctity of the game was threatened.
For instance, Rose could have held back the team’s best relief pitchers when he didn’t have money on the line, while pushing them to pitch when he was betting on the Reds.
Rose applied for reinstatement into baseball – and eligibility into the Hall of Fame – multiple times in his life, most recently in late 2022.Â
Manfred, in a 2015 denial of Rose’s reinstatement request, argued that he had ‘not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life either by an honest acceptance by him of his wrongdoing, so clearly established in the Dowd Report, or by a rigorous, self-aware and sustained program of avoidance by him of all the circumstances that led to his permanent ineligibility.’
Fans visit the statue of Pete Rose outside Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati
Rose, a Cincinnati native, played for the Reds for 17 seasons before managing the team
In addition to his gambling issues, an allegation also surfaced in recent years that Rose had an improper sexual relationship with a minor in the 1970s.
In 2017, the Phillies canceled his induction onto the team’s Wall of Fame after a Cincinnati woman said in federal court that she had a sexual relationship with the married Rose that began during his first stint with the Reds in 1973, when she was 14 or 15.
Rose has never been charged with statutory rape and the statute of limitations has expired. Although he has reportedly admitted to the relationship, he has insisted that he believed she was 16 at the time of the affair, making her old enough in the state of Ohio to consent to sexual activity.
